The Margarido House is on its way to being the first home the nation that's both LEED-H certified and GreenPoint rated. It's also aiming to be the first custom home in Northern California to be LEED-H Platinum certified. The ~4600 sf home is still waiting on Platinum certification, but it's important to note that because of it's large size, the homeowners had to pursue drastic green measure to get into Platinum territory. And they did quite well, actually, building a home that's 55% more efficient than California's Title 24 energy standards. Check out this list of green features:

It’s fun getting weeMail … we’ve just learned from Alchemy Architects about some new weeHouse announcements relating to affordability and sustainability. First things first, everyone wants to know about prefab pricing, right? You can now get a 2000 sf weeHouse with so called Good Stuff for around $125 per sf, give or take. Second, weeHouse has teamed up with The Fusion Companies to offer off-grid and supplemental Energy Kits for weeHouses.

Earlier this month, the USGBC awarded LEED Silver certification to the Resonance House, a project designed and built by the collaboration of Design Lab Inc. and University of Kentucky College of Design. Of note, the Resonance House is the first and only Kentucky home to be certified by the USGBC at the time of certification. It’s a 4,400 sf home with contemporary finishes and energy efficient elements. Located at 151 Old Georgetown Street in Lexington, the five-star plus Energy Star home has a small operating cost of 2.8 cents per sf, or ~$125 per month.

I’ve been intrigued by ZEDfactory ever since I first started seeing their homes and designs. The three letters "ZED", which stand for Zero Energy Development, seem to show up in all ZEDfactory designs. But I must admit: their designs have a certain whimsical, if not playful, look. That’s no big deal, though, because future solutions are going to look different. Certainly, ZEDfactory is serious when it comes to pushing the envelope towards sustainable housing options. The above and below RuralZED was on display earlier this year at EcoBuild in Earls Court, London. To be clear, RuralZED is more than a house, it’s a system for developing zero carbon, zero energy, healthy homes.

Just one mile from downtown Seattle in Madison Valley, Cascade Built has finished their latest green home, the Alley House. This high-performance home just received LEED Platinum certification last week and, for those that are interested, is on sale for ~$770,000. The home is on an advantageous urban infill lot and features some high-end finishes such as Caesarstone countertops, Kirei doors, and a Liebherr refrigerator. In addition to a private bamboo garden, this home has some of the following green features:

Elizabeth Turnbull was planning for Yale grad school and started estimating her future living expenses. As an incoming Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies student, Elizabeth calculated that she would spend ~$14,000 over two years of school and wanted to do something effective with that money. So she channeled a little inspiration from Tumbleweed Tiny House and decided to build her own tiny home as economically as possible.

So far, she’s made incredible progress building the 8′ x 18′ modish home on a flatbed trailer. By the time she’s done, the off-grid home will price out just over $11,000 or so. And it’s surprisingly spacious inside, too.